David Boyes wrote:
z/OpenBSD -- wibni?
Yeah, it would. I just don't think anyone's got the spare time to spend
on something that has even less commercial support than Linux and
OpenSolaris. The justification for doing both Linux and OpenSolaris had
to do with mindshare and commercial access, with Linux attaining a
growing mindshare, and OpenSolaris acting as a skills bridge, as well as
bringing some of the unique Solaris extensions that Linux hasn't
acquired yet. OpenBSD would be fun, but you can run everything that it
does on Linux, so it'd be a hard sell.
Right, absolutely. But. The question is, does Linux continue to buy for
this niche
enough mindshare to compensate for the added complexity and problematic
nature
of its design (e.g, more prodigal of memory and threads at the kernel
level than
BSD)? OpenBSD might well run faster, better and with less resources to
do the same
job.
In the long term, does not the viability of open source *nix on VM
depend more
on the chosen guest image settling down to become an /economical, easily
administrable/
data center tool than on whatever cachet it possesses among PC users?
Functionally, OpenBSD and Linux are nearly identical. Most users can't
tell the difference.
Architecturally, administratively, and in terms of security, they are
/worlds apart/.
Still, it'd be fun to have a true BSD derivative on 390. AOS was nice on
the RTs, and there still are a bunch of semantic things that I really
hate about SVID-based systems.
I think 3-6 good C programmers, one or two of who posses familiarity
with running
this sort of guest under VM, could bring OpenBSD over in a few months.
It configures,
builds and boots /so much more simply/ than Linux!!
As I've said, Theo scolds me for whining in public about this and tells
me just to get
started on my own, but I've got my own time commitments. Were a team of
the sort I have
described to step forward I would participate, but I can't just take a
flyer speculatively
on this (not in 2008, at least). My speculative flyer for 2008 is
PigIron, as I sit home
and code open source and write magazine articles in lieu of shining my
shoes and
getting a job :)
--
Jack J. Woehr # "Self-delusion is
http://www.well.com/~jax # half the battle!"
http://www.softwoehr.com # - Zippy the Pinhead
